Blog Tour: The Ghost Woods Excerpt
Hello, all!
Lichen Hall is shrouded in mystery-- of ghost stories, witches, and a child who isn't a child. Pearl Gorham is sent with a group of other women to give birth at Lichen Hall, and it doesn't take long for her to suspect the caretakers are hiding something. Then she meets a mother and young boy who live on the grounds, and together they begin to unravel the house's history.
You can check out an excerpt below!
Summerween will soon be upon us, and if you're looking for a fun spooky story to add to your TBR, check out The Ghost Woods by C.J. Cooke.
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| Pub Date: 4-29-25 Adult - Horror |
Lichen Hall is shrouded in mystery-- of ghost stories, witches, and a child who isn't a child. Pearl Gorham is sent with a group of other women to give birth at Lichen Hall, and it doesn't take long for her to suspect the caretakers are hiding something. Then she meets a mother and young boy who live on the grounds, and together they begin to unravel the house's history.
You can check out an excerpt below!
Pearl
Scottish Borders, Scotland
September 1965
1
This place is in the middle of goddamn bloody nowhere. It's getting dark, and I swear my bladder is going to explode if I don't pee in the next two minutes.
"Do you think we could pull over?" I ask Mr. Peterson. He's the Church of England's Moral Welfare Officer.
"Oh no, is it that time?" he says, tearing his eyes from the road to glance at me with horror. "Do we need to find you a hospital?"
"What? No!" I say. "I'm not in labor. I just need to empty my bladder."
The car wobbles slightly as Mr. Peterson decides what to do with this information. He flicks the indicator-a pointless act, given that we're the only car for miles-and slams the brakes on, pulling to the side of the road in a cloud of gravel dust.
I burst out of the car and scramble through the bushes at the roadside, arranging my heavily pregnant body before squatting down with relief. It's only when I'm finished that I realize I'm ankle-deep in a bog, and my attempts to yank my feet free of the sucking mud flicks up enough of it to ruin the expensive dress my mother bought for me to impress the Whitlocks. Fat chance they'll be anything but disgusted now.
"Oh dear. Did you have a fall?" Mr. Peterson asks when I return to the car. I had to reach into the bog to retrieve one of my shoes, so I'm now sleeved and socked in black slime. He produces a handkerchief from his breast pocket, and I use it to scrub off the worst of it, but the smell makes me gag.
"Let's go, shall we?" I say.
"Right." He clears his throat and turns the radio on before heading back to the road. The Beatles' "I Want to Hold Your Hand" comes on, and he moves a hand from the wheel to change the station.
"Oh, can you not?" I say. "I love the Beatles."
He's miffed, but leaves the radio as it is.
"I went to see them, you know," I tell him. "Last April. When they came to Edinburgh."
"Did they?" he says, and I laugh. As if anyone on the planet didn't know this.
"I signed the original petition to get them to come to Scotland."
"You must be quite the fan," he says.
I tell him how Lucy, Sebastian, and I camped out for two nights on Bread Street to get tickets. It was freezing cold, a long row of sleeping bags huddled together on the pavements, but I never laughed so much in my life. And then, the night of the concert, the sight of the four of them on the small stage of the ABC Cinema, all in gray suits. When they played "I Want to Hold Your Hand," you could barely hear them for the hysteria. Everyone around us immediately burst into tears, even Sebastian. It feels like a hundred years ago that we did that.
"I'm more of a Glenn Miller man myself," Mr. Peterson says, and he gives in to the urge to flip the station to the eight o'clock BBC News.
I wonder how often he makes this trip, driving knocked-up girls to mother and baby homes-although the place we're headed to isn't a mother and baby home, per se. It's a residential home. Lichen Hall, a sprawling sixteenth-century manor house owned by the Whitlock family, who lovingly take in girls like me on occasion to spare them the indignity of entering an institution. I'm grateful for this, really I am. But I'm so anxious, I've broken out in hives. Lichen Hall is situated on the Scottish Borders, half an hour from the little fishing village of St. Abbs-or, like I said, in the middle of goddamn nowhere. What am I going to do all day? I should have asked if they have a record player, or, at the very least, a television. I'm used to being busy, up at five to start my shift at the hospital, then straight out to dinner or a nightclub with friends.
"I don't suppose you know if this place has a television?" I ask Mr. Peterson.
"I'm afraid I don't."
"They'll have a phone, won't they? I'll be able to ring my family?"
"You didn't find that out before you agreed to stay?"
Truth be told, I was too ashamed to do anything other than resign myself to whatever fate my parents planned out for me. Pregnant and unmarried at twenty-two. I'm such a disappointment.
"It's not too late to apply for a place at an institutional mother and baby home," he says, hearing the fear in my silence. "They've changed, you know. Not as Dickensian as they used to be."
I don't believe this for a moment. I visited a mother and baby home last month. It was one of the smaller ones, in a terraced house on Corstorphine Road, run by the Salvation Army. The atmosphere inside chilled me. The matron was charming, but the walls were cold and bare, and from the pale, fearful expressions of the girls there I suspected she ruled the place with an iron fist.
"Ma says she knows the owners of Lichen Hall," I tell him. "She says they're my kind of people. Mr. Whitlock's retired. He was a scientist. A pioneering microbiologist, if I'm correct."
"A microbiologist? And they own a mansion?"
"He held professorships at Edinburgh University and Yale. Mrs. Whitlock's father bought Lichen Hall, back in the day. I'm sure they'll have a telephone." I say this more for myself than for Mr. Peterson. "And anyway, how would it look if I canceled so late in the day?"
He arches an eyebrow. "Your mother is a friend of the Whitlocks?"
"Well, friends of friends." I try to read his look. "Why? And don't even think about telling me the place is haunted. My brother's already tried that one."
Scottish Borders, Scotland
September 1965
1
This place is in the middle of goddamn bloody nowhere. It's getting dark, and I swear my bladder is going to explode if I don't pee in the next two minutes.
"Do you think we could pull over?" I ask Mr. Peterson. He's the Church of England's Moral Welfare Officer.
"Oh no, is it that time?" he says, tearing his eyes from the road to glance at me with horror. "Do we need to find you a hospital?"
"What? No!" I say. "I'm not in labor. I just need to empty my bladder."
The car wobbles slightly as Mr. Peterson decides what to do with this information. He flicks the indicator-a pointless act, given that we're the only car for miles-and slams the brakes on, pulling to the side of the road in a cloud of gravel dust.
I burst out of the car and scramble through the bushes at the roadside, arranging my heavily pregnant body before squatting down with relief. It's only when I'm finished that I realize I'm ankle-deep in a bog, and my attempts to yank my feet free of the sucking mud flicks up enough of it to ruin the expensive dress my mother bought for me to impress the Whitlocks. Fat chance they'll be anything but disgusted now.
"Oh dear. Did you have a fall?" Mr. Peterson asks when I return to the car. I had to reach into the bog to retrieve one of my shoes, so I'm now sleeved and socked in black slime. He produces a handkerchief from his breast pocket, and I use it to scrub off the worst of it, but the smell makes me gag.
"Let's go, shall we?" I say.
"Right." He clears his throat and turns the radio on before heading back to the road. The Beatles' "I Want to Hold Your Hand" comes on, and he moves a hand from the wheel to change the station.
"Oh, can you not?" I say. "I love the Beatles."
He's miffed, but leaves the radio as it is.
"I went to see them, you know," I tell him. "Last April. When they came to Edinburgh."
"Did they?" he says, and I laugh. As if anyone on the planet didn't know this.
"I signed the original petition to get them to come to Scotland."
"You must be quite the fan," he says.
I tell him how Lucy, Sebastian, and I camped out for two nights on Bread Street to get tickets. It was freezing cold, a long row of sleeping bags huddled together on the pavements, but I never laughed so much in my life. And then, the night of the concert, the sight of the four of them on the small stage of the ABC Cinema, all in gray suits. When they played "I Want to Hold Your Hand," you could barely hear them for the hysteria. Everyone around us immediately burst into tears, even Sebastian. It feels like a hundred years ago that we did that.
"I'm more of a Glenn Miller man myself," Mr. Peterson says, and he gives in to the urge to flip the station to the eight o'clock BBC News.
I wonder how often he makes this trip, driving knocked-up girls to mother and baby homes-although the place we're headed to isn't a mother and baby home, per se. It's a residential home. Lichen Hall, a sprawling sixteenth-century manor house owned by the Whitlock family, who lovingly take in girls like me on occasion to spare them the indignity of entering an institution. I'm grateful for this, really I am. But I'm so anxious, I've broken out in hives. Lichen Hall is situated on the Scottish Borders, half an hour from the little fishing village of St. Abbs-or, like I said, in the middle of goddamn nowhere. What am I going to do all day? I should have asked if they have a record player, or, at the very least, a television. I'm used to being busy, up at five to start my shift at the hospital, then straight out to dinner or a nightclub with friends.
"I don't suppose you know if this place has a television?" I ask Mr. Peterson.
"I'm afraid I don't."
"They'll have a phone, won't they? I'll be able to ring my family?"
"You didn't find that out before you agreed to stay?"
Truth be told, I was too ashamed to do anything other than resign myself to whatever fate my parents planned out for me. Pregnant and unmarried at twenty-two. I'm such a disappointment.
"It's not too late to apply for a place at an institutional mother and baby home," he says, hearing the fear in my silence. "They've changed, you know. Not as Dickensian as they used to be."
I don't believe this for a moment. I visited a mother and baby home last month. It was one of the smaller ones, in a terraced house on Corstorphine Road, run by the Salvation Army. The atmosphere inside chilled me. The matron was charming, but the walls were cold and bare, and from the pale, fearful expressions of the girls there I suspected she ruled the place with an iron fist.
"Ma says she knows the owners of Lichen Hall," I tell him. "She says they're my kind of people. Mr. Whitlock's retired. He was a scientist. A pioneering microbiologist, if I'm correct."
"A microbiologist? And they own a mansion?"
"He held professorships at Edinburgh University and Yale. Mrs. Whitlock's father bought Lichen Hall, back in the day. I'm sure they'll have a telephone." I say this more for myself than for Mr. Peterson. "And anyway, how would it look if I canceled so late in the day?"
He arches an eyebrow. "Your mother is a friend of the Whitlocks?"
"Well, friends of friends." I try to read his look. "Why? And don't even think about telling me the place is haunted. My brother's already tried that one."
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